Friends, I’m so excited our summer preacher series is upon us! Several of these preachers will preach on “rude praise,” some from the Psalms, some from other places. Here they are:
This Sunday we hear from one of the most important artists in Canada. Shadrach Kabango has hosted CBC's "Q" and is the star interviewer for Peabody and Emmy winning Hip-Hop Evolution on Netflix. It’s an amazing show to watch—he gets to go around to his hip-hop heroes, now old men, and tell them how amazing what they did as teenagers was. They usually demur: nah, it wasn’t that great. He responds with facts: no, it was, and here’s all it made possible. By the end they’re nodding. Ok, you’re right, that wasn’t too bad. I interviewed him about preaching here, you can learn more about his work here here, here and here in preparation for Sunday.
You have heard Rabbi Yael Splansky from Holy Blossom Temple preach before. She’s a figure with extraordinary wisdom and strength and good humour. She’s a fourth-generation Reformed rabbi, which is about as far back as one can go in that movement. You may remember HBT has stained glass by the same artist who did our stained-glass windows at TEMC. Since those early days in the Reform movement it’s become, well, more traditional in some ways: using more Hebrew language, never bothering to fix the organ after it broke (organs are Christian things, you see). I have learned so much from our friendship and am so glad she’s back. Watching her online will keep you busy. I worry when she preaches people are going to wander up Bathurst Street to HBT and not come back.
I’m particularly keen on the preacher on August 18th. Rev. Jaylynn Byassee is originally from west Texas, which means she owns a proper pair of cowboy boots (“proper” means the boot is pointy enough that you can kill a scorpion in a corner of a room with it). She has done ministry in places as far flung as Mexico, Russia, Bolivia, North Carolina, Illinois, British Columbia and now Ontario, where she is preaching at Kingsway-Lambton in Etobicoke. I sometimes say when I preach people respond, ‘he’s smart but confusing,’ when she preaches people say, ‘we love her!’ It’s a very different emotional register. She’s a mom to three pretty great kids, to our new chocolate lab Cocoa, and I’m grateful to say, wife to me. She preached to raves at our parking lot service last summer, and this is her first time in our sanctuary.
On August 25th we’ll have the not-rev. Dr. Joseph Mangina. Joe is a rare lay theologian in Protestant churches—usually we get ordained at some point. He is one of the world’s leading theologians of Karl Barth especially, and of Barth’s students Hans Frei and George Lindbeck who taught Joe at Yale. He has been teaching at Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto for more than 25 years. His family tells him his interest in American politics is too keen and he needs to chill about it. It’s sort of that way with us Canadians, isn’t it?! Peering down south with horror alternating with fascination. I told the Macchiones, conversant in Italian as Lou is, that Joe’s family came from Sicily originally, and his surname means “eaters.” They can do a proper Italian greeting with one another that day. The Manginas first defied expectations by immigrating to Birmingham Alabama before settling in a proper Italian place in North America: New Jersey, where Joe grew up. He’s a fantastic teacher and I’m so glad you’ll get to hear him.
Finally on Labour Day Sunday, September 1, the Rev. Dr. Paul Scott Wilson will be back with us, as he seems to be every Labour Day. No one seems to know why or how he became the Labour Day guy but he’s happy about it. Paul is the dean of Canadian preaching and perhaps of North American. He’s had a long and happy relationship with TEMC and on this Sunday in particular he’s preaching on the end of the world. Does Paul know something the rest of us don’t?! I’ll preside over communion that day as well.
On September 8th, we’ll be back to two services with John Arndt leading at 9:15! We’ll have our welcome-back lunch that day during which we’ll say farewell to Rev. Lori Diaz, on her way to her next calling at Central United Church in Unionville.